Thread by @pmdfoster

Bookmark this tweet. It's not "The Guardian" that is worried about the dangers of not having full checks on EU food imports after #Brexit, it's the flipping Food Standards Agency...and the British Veterinary Association, the National Pig Association, the National Farmers' Union/1

https://twitter.com/Jacob_Rees_Mogg/status/1541464495511437312

The point here is that professional folk advising the government are worried...as I reported last month the FSA has already warned pig industry of 'white vans' of illegal pig meat entering from Romania, with risk of African Swine Fever/2

ft.com/content/35f540…

If you advertise the fact that you're leaving the front door open, don't be suprised if a crook walks through it.

As Zoe Davies of Nat Pig Assoc @Mrs_Pig says, “We know that this is an accident waiting to happen, because it’s an accident that has already happened before" /3

@Mrs_Pig What about the vets? Well, BVA @BritishVets vice president James Russell @uttoxeterjames is "deeply concerned" about Rees-Mogg's quips about fish-fingers posing no dangers...which totally misses the point. /4

@Mrs_Pig @BritishVets @uttoxeterjames And Minette Batters, @Minette_Batters the NFU boss called the borders decision “astounding” and “unacceptable”, adding checks were “absolutely crucial to the nation’s biosecurity, animal health and food safety”. /5

ft.com/content/fabb9b…

@Mrs_Pig @BritishVets @uttoxeterjames @Minette_Batters Now the Government says that it will save consumers £1bn by reducing checks, and that its building a whizzy new digital border with fewer checks for 2024/25...but that's a lot of expertise for jolly japes Jacob to be scoffing at as he takes a calculated risk on safety/6

@Mrs_Pig @BritishVets @uttoxeterjames @Minette_Batters Because while the FSA says there is no evidence that standards of food imports had fallen, its chair Professor Susan Jebb said risks of a safety incident were rising...to quote her in full.../7

@Mrs_Pig @BritishVets @uttoxeterjames @Minette_Batters Jebb: “The longer the UK operates without assurance that products from the EU meet our high food and feed safety standards, the less confident we can be that we can effectively identify potential safety incidents.”

I'll just leave it there. 8/ENDS